Photovoltaic Cells (PV cells) are used in a variety of contexts for providing power to various systems. In many cases PV Cells come preformed in a certain size and shape. It may be therefore desirable to interconnect multiple PV Cells.
In many cases this is done using manual or automated soldering. Elimination of high value Automated Tab/String Soldering equipment and manual hand soldering tab and string operator labor may reduce capital equipment costs, hand or machine soldering labor head counts and related costs. Most operators currently use hand solders or automatically Solders single ribbons onto c-Si PV Cells. These methods have high variation in output due to human variation or have high costs associated with capital, power and maintenance. Hand, Infra-Red, Laser, Convection, Conduction and Soft Touch Soldering are all methods currently used today by companies to either manually or automatically solder tabbing ribbons to PV Cells in a single piece by piece singular fashion. These range from a table top application to large soldering units mounted within an enclosure or machine.
High Capital, Energy and Maintenance Costs . . . Assumption that the machines must have high process controls, mechanical tolerances, electrical features, inspections and alignment mechanisms. Manual soldering assembly and handling of PV Cells creates a high level of stress on the Cells c-Si structure thus leading to higher breakage rates and less performance of the PV Cell.